The journalist and writer Martin Llade He is in charge of broadcasting the New Year’s concert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for RTVE and has just published his latest book, “The Last Concert in Vienna”. It’s a detective novel … which tells us the origins of the concert, in 1939, through the enigmatic figure of its creator, Clemens Krauss. Can there be anything better than starting the year with him and his sins?
“I can’t control my gluttony and I should because I’m hypertensive”
—I forgive him a sin.
-Gluttony. I can’t control it and I should because I’m hypertensive.
—These aren’t the best dates to try it either.
— Faced with a platter of crayfish or a good ham, there is no way.
—But it can be a good resolution to start 2026 with the New Year’s concert and the diet..
— Forgive me for my laziness.
“I am lazy but only in thought, not in action”
—I didn’t make him lazy.
— I am, but only in thought, not in action. I have so many things to do that I don’t have time. But I’m a big procrastinator. I think this should be the eighth deadly sin.
—But he even wrote a book this year.
— Yes, and I have also been doing a daily story for twelve years on the show “Symphonie du matin”.
—A daily story for twelve years, what a scandal. Where do you get the inspiration for so many ideas?
—The world of composers is full of anecdotes that can turn into stories.
“Would you not forgive a Mozart or a Beethoven for being vain?”
—Anecdotes and sins? What would be the cardinal sin of the world of composition?
— Vanity, without a doubt. But… Wouldn’t you forgive a Mozart or a Beethoven for being vain?
—It seems obligatory to me that they were. What seems to me to be a sin is that those who have no talent are sinners.
—It greatly disturbed the great geniuses that others were more successful without any talent. But the art of intrigue has been highly valued throughout the ages and, some, were more normal in terms of talent but possessed the power to operate in these environments and obtain positions. The great geniuses took it badly and it generated envy, anger…
—The door was open to the rest of the sins.
— Exactly, in fact I think I can give you the name of a composer for each of the sins.
—What a great idea! Let’s do it! Who would embody lust?
—Puccini.
—And what about gluttony?
—Rossini.
“Rossini, while in bed, dropped a tune and, as he did not get up to hear it, he wrote another”
—Laziness?
—Rossini too. Once in bed, he dropped a tune and, when he didn’t get up to hear it, he wrote another one.
—Avarice?
—Stravinsky was well known for being particularly greedy.
“Mozart did not envy talent but success”
—Envy.
—I would say Mozart. He was very envious of those who had triumphed before him and he insulted them in his letters, as well as poor Muzio Clementi. But he did not envy talent but success.
—Anger.
—Beethoven. When his friend Ferdinand Ries told him that his third symphony was too long, he threw an inkwell at his head.
“Wagner was very arrogant. The fact is that what he believed about himself was true. »
—We remain proud.
— Wagner was very arrogant. The fact is that what he believed about himself was true. But he who says: “I am going to build a theater so that only my plays can be performed there” is someone who has a very high conception of himself. But also Lully, who obtained a monopoly on theater music throughout France and no one could write an opera or ballet without his permission.
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